Life is made of so many moments that mean nothing. Then one day, a single moment comes along to define every second that comes after. Such moments are tests of courage, of strength.

So long as you fight the darkness, you stand in the light.

Fear can be good, Laia. It can keep you alive. But don't let it control you. Don't let it sow doubts within you. When the fear takes over, use the only thing more powerful, more indestructible, to fight it: your spirit. Your heart.

I never feared the night, not even as a child, but Blackcliff’s night is different, heavy with a silence that makes you look over your shoulder, a silence that feels like a living thing.

Your emotions make you human. Even the unpleasant ones have a purpose. Don't lock them away. If you ignore them, they just get louder and angrier.

Seeing the enemy as human. A general's ultimate nightmare.

Mercy is weakness. Offer it to your enemies and you might as well fall upon your own sword.

There will be so much more in between. So much uncertainty. I don't know if we'll survive the catacombs, let alone the rest of it. But it doesn't matter. For now, these steps are enough. These first few precious steps into darkness. Into the unknown. Into freedom.

I should just build a bleeding house here," I mutter as I pick myself up off the snow-covered ground. "Maybe get a few chickens. Plant a garden.

Don't lock yourself away from those who care about you because you think you'll hurt them - or they'll hurt you. What point is there in being human if you don't let yourself feel anything?

Exhaustion is temporary. Pain is temporary. But Helene dying because I didn't find a way to get her back on time—that's permanent.

You fool, Helene. When you love, there is always more pain.

Perhaps grief is like battle: After experiencing enough of it, your body’s instincts take over. When you see it closing in like a Martial death squad, you harden your insides. You prepare for the agony of a shredded heart. And when it hits, it hurts, but not as badly, because you have locked away your weakness, and all that’s left is anger and strength.

Failure doesn't define you. It's what you do after you fail that determines whether you are a leader or a waste of perfectly good air.

It takes only a split second for life to go horribly wrong. To fix the mess, I need a thousand things to go right. The distance from one bit of luck to the next feels as great as the distance across oceans. But, I decide in this moment, I will bridge that distance, again and again, until I win. I will not fail.

When did you star here?” I ask her.“Three days ago. Sir. Aspirant. Um—” She wrings her hands.“Veturius is fine.”She walks carefully, gingerly—the Commandant must have whipped her recently. And yet she doesn't hunch or shuffle like the others slaves. The straight-backed grace with which she moves tells her story better than words. She'd been a freewoman before this—I'd bet my scims on it. And she has no idea how pretty she is—or what kind of problems her beauty will cause for her at a place like Blackcliff. The wind pulls at her hair again, and I catch her scent—like fruit and sugar. “Can I give you some advi

It's a trick question, Aquilla. A Mask is not made. She is remade. First she is destroyed. Stripped down to the trembling child that lives at her core. It doesn't matter how strong she thinks she is. Blackcliff diminishes, humiliates, and humbles her." "But if she survives, she is reborn. She rises from the shadow world of failure and despair so that she might become as fearful as that which destroyed her. So that she might know darkness and use it as her scim and shield in her mission to serve the Empire.

The voice is deep and soft, not a sound so much as a feeling. It is storm and wind and leaves twisting in the night. It is roots sucking deep at the earth, and the pale, sightless creatures that live below the ground. But there’s something wrong with this voice, something diseased at its core.

Rage colors her every movement. Rage that has nothing to do with her so-called bodyguards and everything to do with me and her and the confusion rolling around inside the both of us. This should be interesting

Don't lock yourself away from those who care about you because you think you'll hurt them or they'll hurt you. What point is there in being human if you don't let yourself feel anything?

Failure doesn't define you. It's what you do after the failure that determines whether you are a leader or a waste of perfectly good air.

You’re sure this is what you want?” I search her eyes for doubt, fear, uncertainty, but all I see is that fire. Ten hells“I’m sure”“Then I’ll find a way

I don't smile at her. It will only scare her. For a female slave, a smile from a Mask is not usually a good thing.

Fight back, Laia. For Darin. For Izzi. For every Scholar this beast has abused. Fight. A scream bursts from me, and I claw at Marcus’s face, but a punch to my stomach takes the wind out of my lungs. I double over, retching, and his knee comer up into my forehead. The hallway spins, and I drop to my knees. Then I hear him laughting, a sadistic chuckle that stokes my defiance.Sluggishly, I throw myself at his legs. It won’t be like before, like during the raid when I let that Mask drag me about my own house like some dead thing.This time, I’ll fight. Tooth and nail, I’ll fight.

Elias and Laia are each other’s countermelodies. I am just a dissonant note.

There are two kinds of guilt: the kind that drowns you until you’re useless, and the kind that fires your soul to purpose.

The rest is just wishes and hope, the most fragile of things.

Disappear! I scream the word in my mind, queen of the desolate landscape therein, ordering her ragged troops to a last stand.

Are the Trials starting?” The girl claps her hands over her mouth. “I'm sorry,” she whispers. “I—”“It's all right.” I don't smile at her. It will only scare her. For a female slave, a smile from a Mask is not usually a good thing. “I'm actually wondering the same thing. What's your name?”“S-slave-Girl.” Of course. My mother would already have scourged her name out of existence.“Right. You work for the Commandant?” I want her to say no. I want her to say that my mother roped her into this. I want her to say she's assigned to the kitchens or infirmary, where slaves aren't scarred or missing body p

We match each other stroke for stroke until I get a hit on her right arm. She tries to switch sword arms, but I jab my scim at her wrist faster than she can parry. Her scim goes flying, and I tackle her. Her white-blonde hair tumbles free of her bun.“Surrender!” I pin her down at the wrists, but she trashes and rips one arm free, scrabbling for a dagger at her waist. Steel stabs at my ribs, and seconds later, I am on my back with a blade at my throat.“Ha!” She leans down, her hair falling around us like a shimmering silver curtain.

She's still clinging to the side of her mountain, just like I'm still wandering lost in my battlefield.

You—you were like me. You were a child. A normal child. And that was taken from you.”“Does that bother you?”“Well, it certainly makes you harder to hate.

Children are born to break their mothers’ hearts, my boy.

So you've made a few bad decisions. So have I. So has Elias. So has everyone attempting to do something difficult. That doesn't mean that you give up, you fool. Do you understand?